For the first
time in over a century, marine mammal scientists from NOAA’s National
Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries)
have confirmed the sighting of a northern right whale calf in the eastern
North Pacific Ocean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) is an agency of the U.S.
Department of Commerce.

The northern right
whale is the most endangered whale in the world. A reliable population
estimate of the North Pacific’s right whale population does not
exist, and scientists have only spotted a dozen or so individuals of the
Eastern Pacific population in recent years.

“This is cause
for celebration,” said Jim Balsiger, regional administrator for
NOAA Fisheries in Alaska. “The
North Pacific right whale population is in danger of extinction. A mother
and calf embody hope for the whales.”

“The weather was heavily
overcast when we first made the sighting,” said Southwest Fisheries
Science Center scientist Lisa Ballance, the research cruise leader. “We
immediately launched a small boat with three scientists aboard to get
a closer look, and to take photographs and biopsy samples. The rest of
us worked from the flying bridge of the main ship, recording video and
still photographs. We tracked the pair for over an hour before a rain
squall swept over us and shut us down. When the small boat was brought
aboard, well after 10 p.m., we compared notes and the conclusion was that
this was a female-calf pair. One animal was decidedly smaller than the
other, it’s blow was smaller in size and more frequent, it swam
in a position alongside the flank of the larger whale in a drafting position
typical of whale calves in general, and the larger animal seemed intent
on keeping itself between the small boat and the calf. It was a very,
very exciting conclusion.”

On Sept. 2, McArthur
returned to Kodiak Island, Alaska, and the field project came to an end.
Since then, a larger group of scientists has convened to study the proof
of what had actually been seen. Although the photos were taken in such
low light levels that they did not reveal much, the skin sample taken
from the larger whale confirmed it was a female.

Scientists have identified
six individual eastern North Pacific right whales—all male—through
skin sampling since 1997. Nine skin samples, including one from the mother
of the calf, were taken this year. The 2002 samples are not yet genotyped,
but only the one is from a female.

In July 1996, another NOAA
Fisheries research expedition came across right whales in the same area.
Pamela Goddard took photos that proved there were at least four adults,
and—possibly—a calf, but the photo evidence was not clear
enough to confirm the calf sighting. Goddard's report inspired a research
effort that has had scientists using ships, aircraft and acoustic equipment
to search for right whales in this area ever since.

Scientists divide the North
Pacific right whales into two populations, the eastern and western. The
eastern population is more severely depleted than the western. Between
1900 and 1994 there were only 29 reliable sightings of right whales in
the eastern North Pacific. Since then scientific expeditions have found
a few whales—between about four and 13 individuals—in the
eastern North Pacific each year.

A minimum of six clearly-identified
individual right whales and as many as seven more individuals were seen
from McArthur this summer in the Bering Sea.

Right whales were hunted extensively
by whalers in the early 1900s because they were easy to catch, and floated
after they were killed. Right whale flesh is very rich in oil.

Right whales have been protected
since 1935. However, illegal Soviet Union whaling in the 1960s pushed
the eastern population of North Pacific right whales even closer to the
brink of extinction.

There was one report of a right
whale from the western North Pacific population being caught in Russian
gillnets in the 1980s. Since then, there has been no known human-caused
right whale deaths in the North Pacific.

Because the Pacific’s
northern right whale population is small, and because right whales travel
so far, not much is known by scientists about their range and habits.
It is believed that they summer in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska and
may winter as far south as Baja California, Mexico. They likely calve
in winter or spring, after about 12 months gestation.

Their primary food is zooplankton—tiny
marine creatures such as euphausids and copepods—which they gather
by skimming through dense zooplankton patches with their huge mouths agape.

Scientists estimate the right
whale population in the North Atlantic at about 300 individuals.

NOAA’s National
Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries)
is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation’s living marine
resources through scientific research, management, enforcement, and the
conservation of marine mammals and other protected marine species and
their habitat. To learn more about NOAA Fisheries in Alaska, please visit
our website at http://www.fakr.noaa.gov.